Charger
by Shadow Griffin
Summary: This time, Ahsoka couldn't complain about her "babysitter" - it was nice to see her old friend, even nicer to see what he had become. One-Shot, follows the story line of TOC and Big Red.


Here is a small little thing I pulled out of my mind in under an hour – with a lot on my mind, I'm hoping that writing a little will help me think!

Summary: This time, Ahsoka couldn't complain about her"babysitter". It was nice to see an old friend...even nicer to see what he has become.

Disclaimer: C'mon now...OBVIOUSLY I don't own this.

I hope everyone enjoys this tiny thing, it was fun to write. Maybe I should get beck into it!

Happy Writing,

~Eliana

**IOIOIOIOIOI**

Ahsoka Tano was definitely not a morning person – in fact, she preferred to stay hidden beneath her rest mat's covers for the duration of every single morning hour and roll out of her sleep like an overweight Wookie. Master Skywalker never had the right to chastise her over it either, he was by far a greater offender of the 'sleeping through the sun' situation than she was! That's probably what made this morning feel so odd, she told herself as she blew another puff of steam into the crisp morning air. She was never up this early, and if she was, she was probably only up because she couldn't sleep or had to make use of the refresher. She was never dressed, washed, on her feet, and out and about as the planet's sun was just starting to sneak over the horizon.

She was on some random planet that Skyguy had put her on while he went gallivanting off with Obi-Wan on a "special mission" (in other words, he wanted time alone and pawned her off to a "babysitter"), and she had to admit that, for the very first time, she was very happy with whom she had been left with. It had been so long since she had seen her friend and his master, and if it meant getting up at the crack of dawn to wait for him and his master to finish their training for her to spend time with him, in her eyes it was beyond worth it. She gave another long exhale, shifting her shod feet slightly in the soft soil she stood on. According to Skyguy, this was one of the training grounds for her friend's master's ranks, but she had yet to see any clones or even her friend – only ever-friendly and warm Tombur who had greeted her enthusiastically only a few hours ago when she had arrived. The well-built, handsome Echani had ushered her to a room he had gotten ready for her and she fell asleep as soon as her body hit the mat where she slept for a solid five hours before being woken up by the morning horn call outside. Tombur had explained to her that he and his padawan had to do their exercises before he would come and see her and she understood – she was just excited to see him at all.

She leaned forward, resting her arms and upper body against the chest-height durasteel rail in front of her, finding childish amusement in the puffs of steam that left her mouth and nose and danced in front of her. Out in the distance on the other side of the soil-filled oval were a number of what she assumed were clones (the fact that most were dressed differently than the 501st made it hard for her brain to make the distinction). She had heard the familiar grumbling and nicking earlier but hadn't caught sight of her friend anywhere – but she had strategically placed herself on a spot on the track where it would be impossible for her not to see him if he ran by. Her eyes widened when she caught a glimpse of the gorgeous red skin in the distance.

After all of her searching and hoping to happen across him, Djibourdi was suddenly just there... walking calmly alongside his master as they entered the track on the far side away from her. The early morning sun lit up his skin like fire and she could feel the rumbles that left his lungs as he calmly walked amidst the quickly moving assumed-to-be clones and officers, never hesitating in a step. Even at a walk he presented a look of rippling power with the way he slightly bowed his neck and lightly tapped his feet over the ground, the muscled of his arms and shoulders easily bearing the weight of the training harness he wore. It was an old-fashioned contraption of leather straps that fit over his chest, shoulders and abdomen, with the familiar metal weights clipped to both sides of it. He and his master both had their own weights and wraps on their arms and legs, both moving so softly over the ground Ahsoka couldn't pick up the vibrations of their steps, even when they began their warm up in the back of the massive track.

Ahsoka's immediate emotional reaction when Djibourdi came onto the track was that he was an old soul – he took in everything: every motion, every sound, every scent, and nothing seemed to affect him. It was how smooth he was, how elegant he moved...poetry in motion, she told herself.

"Here he comes," she whispered to herself, somehow having missed Tombur's journey over to be only fifteen feet from her as her friend came flying down the back of the track, around the turn, alongside the inside rail – and time slowed.

Ahsoka's eyes pinned his every motion as he darted past, every small muscle pull, every elegant motion of his neck, at the speed he was going he should have appeared strained yet he did it with such ease! Every step gave another breath to his lungs as his body demanded, their people's amazing ability for speed dictated by the oxygen his body was desperate for. He whipped past and Tombur spared her a look, one eye on her, one on his padawan as he held onto his chrono-stopwatch.

"It's amazing how he always looks like he's just jogging, isn't it?" he told her off-handedly, pressing the stop the instant his padawan's nose passed the marker a bit further down the track. Glancing down to the blinking time of the watch's face, he sent a sour look shooting to his padawan, "You pinhead!"

She giggled out loud as Tombur jogged to catch up with his apprentice who was now slowly walking back to both of them, meeting him halfway, trotting parallel to him with about six feet between them as he chastised him.

"How fast did you think you were going, Red?" he questioned the younger, holding the stopwatch closer to his own face in a small gesture of playful frustration.

"Forty-seven," was the even response from the soft voice that always gave Ahsoka goosebumps.

"Forty-seven," the Echani snorted, shaking the stopwatch at him, "How about forty-two and change?! You call that slow? I told you to go slow!"

"There's no way, I would have felt that -"

"Forty-two and change, Red!"

"You better fix that clock, master, there's no way."

"I'm gonna fix your clock!" the knight shot back, pointing his finger mockingly at his apprentice who giggled, clasping both of his hands together and bringing them to his mouth mutter a Togruti prayer, jogging swiftly away, "What'd ya say? I heard that!"

The man slowed himself to a walk and finally halted next to Ahsoka, watching Djibourdi make his way back to where his men were warming up.

"He could be a racer," Ahsoka told the Jedi Knight.

"He hasn't raced anyone yet," he told her strongly, and she almost wanted to tease him for the protective look that suddenly crossed his face.

"Race or not, he's great at it!"

"Never fall in love with it."

Before she could question his meaning he was off like a shot himself, going to meet his now organized column of chargers who were being taken through their paces by his apprentice. This was a whole different world for Ahsoka – a whole other side fo the war that she swore she knew a lot about. She had never in her military career seen a charger let alone been friends with one...and she was sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that Djibourdi was doing something that her people just simply couldn't do. He had grown up a lot in the past year, he had filled out and was looking more and more like the distinguished king that he should have been. When she had first met him he was so small, small enough for her to hold him against her and cradle him like an infant. Now he was actually slightly taller than her and far more built with muscle – not to say that he was overly built. Actually, the way he was pieced together was so perfect he reminded her of an antique time-teller that had been fitted together by hand.

It was amazing what a difference a year and a half could make, she pondered, he had gone from being so severely underweight and hardly able to stand to being a regal looking young man who could blow past anyone in the blink of an eye. Djibourdi had two very different, very...distinct ways of acting. Around the Temple, around the public, around her, he was a sweetheart – it touched her just how nice her friend was and how shy he could be when someone gave him any kind of attention. Yet you bring him to a track, to a war meeting, to this kind of training that she was seeing right now, and he transformed into an absolute warrior. All of the scars from the Endrati were hidden beneath his clothes or were so perfectly melded into the shining red skin so well that they only served the purpose to fill him out more.

Ahsoka knew she had been blessed in the ways of the Force. Her friend had obviously been blessed somehow to do something that their kind simply couldn't do. They were built for slow enduring runs or a few seconds of flat-out speed that was unrivaled...too long, and they could very easily overheat and possibly die. Forty-two seconds was far beyond her realm of running flat-out, and her friend had done it so easily, so mechanically, so smoothly that she was in shock and awe that he was hardly breathing deeply when he spoke to his master. He was doing things that he simply shouldn't be able to do.

Realization suddenly hit her and she grumbled, shaking her head. Okay, so Skyguy had actually had a purpose for leaving her this time, so maybe she owed him an apology...or maybe she just owed him payback for leaving her in the first place. Yup, that sounded right.

**IOIOIOIOIO**

Very little, but fun to write! Hope you all enjoyed it, bless you all. Don't flame me – retail gives me enough of that!

Happy Writing,

~Eliana


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